No need to settle for decrepit downtown

While we're not settling - for fiscal recklessness, for high crime - let's not settle for downtown Stockton.

Michael Fitzgerald

While we're not settling - for fiscal recklessness, for high crime - let's not settle for downtown Stockton.

Let's not do what feckless planners, sprawl developers and a public that deserves better have done for decades: accept that downtown is blighted by day and desolate by night.

Downtown's sorry shape is a relic of a civic mindset that steered the city into Chapter 9: that as long as things are OK in the suburbs, no attention need be paid elsewhere.

Ha.

A dead downtown denies city lovers high-density excitement and nightlife. It separates work sites from homes, forcing smoggy commutes. It neglects historic buildings.

A vacant downtown squanders the city's best geographical asset, its waterfront. It repulses potential employers. It banishes our young native urbanites to other cities.

It drains tax dollars as the city stretches services farther out. See Chapter 9, above.

A decrepit downtown creeps out visitors. It exports blight to other neighborhoods. And it jaundices Stocktonians, who come to accept that failure and inadequate leadership are part of the city's fabric.

Just as prudent fiscal reforms followed bankruptcy and smart policing reduced homicides, downtown can change into a hive of humanity at work and play.

But you have to want it, said Mahesh Ranchhod, the board chairman of the Downtown Stockton Alliance. "What is lacking is a communitywide concern for downtown," Ranchhod said. "In 2014, we want the community to become interested in downtown."

Otherwise," Ranchhod said, "The city will be likely to take the easy way out."

Both city leaders and developers need public encouragement, Ranchhod said. "Developers really have to understand that the model has changed. (To) walk-friendly, higher-density housing. Unfortunately, local developers do not seem to believe that can succeed in Stockton."

Because it can't, said John Beckman, CEO of the building Industry Association of the Greater Valley.

"The economics don't work right now," Beckman said. "The cost of putting in 100 townhomes is 1.5 times what somebody is willing to pay for."

The city years ago slashed the cost of building downtown housing by reducing requirements to build libraries, sewers, parks and such things.

But state and federal laws still cost builders a bundle. On top of that, the city has no money. The recession lingers. Gov. Jerry Brown axed redevelopment agencies. Laws restoring redevelopment powers are still in the works.

Yes, and my dog ate it, I got a flat tire, et cetera.

"What we need to do is figure out a good model for creating private sector and public sector involvement," said Micha Runner, Stockton's economic development director.

"Bring us these projects that aren't penciling," Runner said reasonably. "Show us why they aren't working and what you need from us to make it work. We'd love to see new residential downtown. The health of downtown Stockton is a big deal."

It has long been clear that downtown revival faces obstacles. But I respectfully submit that we can do better than "fuhgeddaboutit" as a land-use policy.

To tackle the city's other perennial scourges - its weak budget, high crime and unqualified leadership - without finding a way to revive downtown into a healthy neighborhood is to say "no" to a civic renaissance.